The present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for opening and closing platform screen doors or gates.
The conventional railway station consisting of a raised platform adjacent to the track is essentially the same design as has been used since the beginning of the railway industry in the nineteenth century and is an effective solution to the problem of maximizing passenger boarding speed.
However, the basic platform arrangement suffers from several well known problems, such as passengers falling under trains either deliberately or unintentionally and also litter from passengers falling onto the track. Although incidents of people falling under trains are not common, they result in significant disruption to the network and are traumatic incidents for everyone present. The problem of litter on the track has also increased in recent years and can represent a serious health and safety risk on underground or sub-surface systems where the litter will remain in tunnels until it is cleared up.
Platform screen systems or automated platform gates are well known in the railway industry as one approach of dealing with these problems. Due to the problem of lining up doors on the platform and the train, these systems are usually only installed on lines where the rolling stock is standardized, which in practice is on metro or underground systems, although some dedicated high speed systems are also provided with screens.
In the known platform screen door systems, the operation of the doors is controlled using the signalling system. The signalling system is quite suitable for this as modern systems have great accuracy and are designed for safety critical applications.
However, the use of the signalling system for operating the doors also suffers from a number of problems. In practice, modern signalling systems are complex and prone to faults, which leads to the doors often needing to be operated manually. Additionally, the use of the signalling system makes it very difficult to incrementally retrofit a platform screen door system to a line to be able to operate them.
The present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for controlling the opening and closing of the doors of a platform screen door system that does not rely on a signalling system.
According to the present disclosure, an apparatus for controlling the operation of a platform screen door system includes a first transceiver adapted to be mounted on a train and a second transceiver adapted to be mounted on a platform or on the platform screen door system. The first and second transceivers, when in use, are adapted to communicate with one another such that when the train is stopped within a predetermined tolerance adjacent to a door of the platform screen door system, the train or the transceiver mounted on the train can request that the platform screen doors open.
According to the present disclosure, a method for controlling the operation of a platform screen door or doors includes the steps of: stopping the train at a train platform within a predetermined tolerance or distance of a platform screen door; providing a first transceiver on the train; providing a second transceiver on the platform or the platform screen door, the transceivers configured to communicate with each other; wherein the train or first transceiver requests that the platform screen door opens and then the doors of the train are opened; when loading and/or unloading is complete, the train or first transceiver requests that the doors be closed, and the second transceiver then transmits a signal that the platform screen door is closed and locked, thereby enabling the train to depart when the platform screen door is closed and locked, and a corresponding signal is transmitted to the train and a flag set to enable the train to depart.
The apparatus and method according to the present disclosure, provides for the train to control the operation of the doors rather than the signalling system. By dispensing with the use of the previously-mentioned signalling system in the control of the doors, the speed of the signals is also advantageously speeded up. The platform screen door system, according to the present disclosure, also permits the control of the screen doors by the driver without requiring any additional actions by the driver.
It is within the scope of the present disclosure that a transceiver is fitted at each door position where a passenger may alight from the train. This not only provides for a degree of redundancy in the system but also ensures that the driver does not open the doors on the wrong side of the train.
Other aspects of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following descriptions when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.